Making decisions about knee replacement as an older person with multiple conditions

Well, I think it was, it was getting more and more uncomfortable. More and more painful. There were lots of things I couldn't do and I had to stop doing as I say, badminton or you know, walks and things.

I mean, I can walk, you know, I can walk, but it’s, it’s difficult.

It would be nice to just feel you can walk at a family pace [laughs]. Whether or not I’ll be able to do that without them having to make concessions for me all the time, I don't know.

I really don’t know. I think it’s a bit older I suppose it’s different anyway. But I don’t feel any different inside me, you know?

Yeah, it’s such a shock when I look in the mirror - and shocked when I walk past [laughs] a shop window and I think ‘my god, who’s that awful old woman there?’ But you know, it’s sort of inside me and I’m still like the active person that I want to be.

So, yeah, it’s but that’s just getting older [laughs].

And, you know, obviously, we’re actually very, very happy down here. But, as I say, this is where it comes back to feeling a bit frustrated, you know, having, worked [laugh] pretty hard, now really, I’d like to have the benefits but, you know, but unfortunately, at the moment, because of, certainly as far as I’m concerned, my knees it has been an encumbrance. Although [partner], I have to say, thank God is pretty fit and she does her walking and all the rest of the bits and pieces, but not with me [laughs].

And yes, you know, I get, [laughs] a few years ago, you know, I was in and out of the car, yeah, right, yeah, hello everybody. No, now it whenever I get out of the car, I am always extra careful.

One leg first and then move my bottom round, get the other one out and then give myself a hand out and. I’ve always thought myself as a young -, you know, but as I say, you see the trouble really is, Abi, that particularly with us chaps, we all think we’re 21.

[laughs]

And when something happens and we realise we’re not 21 anymore, we don’t like it [laughs]. And that’s the real problem, if I’m honest [laughs]. But there we go.

I went down there and she really didn’t realise how bad my knee was, because we had to go into town to do a bit of shopping and I literally couldn’t.

I had both my daughters there and they both had to take my arm, either side of us. Which was really quite embarrassing, I didn’t like it, you know. But that’s what they had to do to get us back to the car.

Why was it that you found it embarrassing, Penny?

Well because I’ve always been the one that’s looked after them, and I know they’re older now and I don’t need to do it, but you know, I’ve looked after my husband and I looked after my mother, I just seemed to not be taking this very well, people looking after me. It’s a bit weird.

Not that they mind, they don’t mind at all, but I still would like to be sort of normal again.

Yeah, oh, the impact -, I really don’t have much quality of life at the minute because I can’t get out. I’ve got young grandchildren who I look after and they’re always wanting me to lots of things with them, you know, three-year-olds, four-year-olds like you to run about after them and I just find that now I can’t do it.

You know, and even down to this Christmas, it’s the first Christmas that I haven’t held Christmas day in my home because I can’t stand to cook up for a long time. So fortunately, my daughter is having me for Christmas day at her home but I feel that has impacted on my life as well because I’m not used to others-, I was always used to entertaining the whole family, you know, and I’m just not able to do that this year.

It definitely has had a mental health effect on me, you know. I find myself in tears quite a bit thinking about it, ‘oh gosh, is this what my life’s all about now’, you know, and that’s not good.

My children are very good, you know, and get me along and take me out and things like that but I never thought it would come to that because I’m not that old, I’m only 72, you know, so. And just this year has made me feel old which I don’t like, you know.

But I think the aches and pains affect your nature, wears you down a bit, because it’s constantly there.

I think that’s just absolutely inevitable because there isn’t any time during the day that it doesn’t flip into your mind, you know, and you get a physical -  When I get up out of this chair in a minute, my knees are going to remind me that they’re a problem.

And so, I think you know with the best will in the world, it’s difficult to be happy go lucky all the time.

I mean you keep going because that’s what human beings do, but it’s absolutely bound to have an effect on you emotionally.

I’d been extremely active, yeah, that is this thing that I’m stressing on, really active the whole life, cycling, running and then of course the beating, you know, I used to do a massive amount of driving on a Saturday, that was every Saturday. Out, no problem, you know pheasant beating, you’re over undulating terrain, no problem whatsoever, and then this is just like “aargh.”

So, it’s just a switch in your life, like you-  You know I used to be able to kick a football with the grandkids and that, and that’s what I was, that’s what I really - you know I can’t even kick the ball now? So, they’re the things that, that get you, you know?

That’s what I want to get back to, is just being able to do, to be mobile and-  Everything else is, well, apart from my arm - but everything else is working, you know? Touch wood.

And that’s what I want - to keep it working, you know, that’s the sort of thing.

So, if it’s just, if that’s the sort of thing that you’re looking for, the mental aspects of it, you know are just like that’s, it’s just like envy of people. You watch the telly and you envy somebody running down the stairs, going up the stairs, up a hill, or something like that, you know? You just - like I just want me knees to let me go down the stairs.

Well yes, I do, I do, when I’m by myself.

My daughter, one of my daughters has just been up for a few days and she took me to the hospital, and it was totally different having somebody in the house, you know?

And I didn’t sit and worry, at all. Like I do when I’m by myself, cos I think you always just make things worse. I think you always go to the worst scenario when you’re sitting by yourself thinking.

Because it’s been lovely having her here for a few days. I’ve not, my mood has lifted a lot.

Because it’s been over quite an extended period, and because I talk to my friend here regularly, you know we do talk about it and things like that, and obviously you are a bit apprehensive about things.

For instance she mentioned the-, you have an injection in your spine, and you know immediately your stomach kind of does a little roll, but on the other hand you know it’s what happens. It’s what you’ve signed up for and what you want. So, you just have to be sensible about it.

To be honest, I’ve been more - I’ll use the word fed up - about the time scale of everything including when I wasn’t able to have the injection in the knee for example, than worrying about the actual happening, the actual operation and all that.

But I joined the, when we moved down here, I joined the local cricket club and thought ‘well, you know, I could do something like umpiring or something like that.’ But I couldn’t stand now. I couldn’t do that now without a shadow of a doubt. You know, we were hoping to do a bit of croquet or do a bit of something. I couldn’t do that at the moment, unfortunately, which I find very, very frustrating. Because I do like to be, do like to be active and I find my present incapacity very frustrating. But, you know, then I look round and I see people far worse than me and I think ‘well, what am I complaining about?’ [Laughs].

Well, I mean there are, [laughs] dear oh dear, there are some elderly people round here. And, you know, on the Zimmer frames and God knows what else and all the rest of it and you know, little buggies and all the bits and pieces. And I think well, what should, you know, ‘how should I complain?’ In fact, a good friend of ours as well who, she doesn’t live round here, but actually she was a school colleague-, my partner is a school, retired schoolteacher. Her great schoolteacher buddy had, I can’t think of it but anyway, she had to have both her legs amputated. And I can’t think what she had now, I’ll think of it in a minute. Anyway, and of course, I always think to myself, her name is [name of friend], and I always think to myself ‘well my God, [friend] would like to have my complaint’. So, you know, I’m always a little bit, thinking ‘well there’s a lot of people far worse than I am, you know, shut up and get on with it’, if I can put it that way. But yeah, there are times when I do get frustrated because I do want, you know, I would like to certainly be more active than I am. I certainly would like to, at the very least, walk around the town and do a bit of shopping without having to sit down every, every so often.

Because I know I can’t do this, that and the other, so I have to make sure I keep occupied during the day. And I know I have to keep my mind working, and keep working at it because I don’t wish to get into that position again.

Are there examples or strategies that you do use to kind of keep yourself, keep your mental health well that you could share with me?

Well, my sister works full time so she normally comes home for lunch except when she has to work at the hospice one day a week so I make sure that I - because there’s quite a lot of reading matter with governorships - so I make sure I do that.

I’m applying for grants for my buses to try and get money, I always read the newspapers and do crosswords because I’d been brought up with a mother who always had a newspaper and I always have a newspaper, I have three newspapers actually.

[Laughs]. And I read those and I do all the crosswords and so on because I wanna keep my brain occupied, otherwise you seize up altogether. And, you know, do what I can to keep occupied, I’ve got some knitting going on, I’m gonna get a new table and do some craft stuff that I used to do years ago.

I think that that’s very important for your mind and the body and psychologically to say, “Look it’s something that can be put right,” rather than, “Oh, no look, I can’t do anything.”

And I thought [...] but I’m a very philosophical person you see, and I’m pretty spiritual as well, and yeah, and, and knowing that you’ve got a heart condition you know it, it really, that is more worrying than having a knee problem [laughs].

And then I had anxiety actually, know that GP’s today anxiety and depression you, is quite widespread, you know. And I kept telling to myself, I keep telling everybody else, “Look there’s a cure for broken bones, you know, but there is, there is with your mind, look after your mind, your state of mind because if you fall you know somebody might pick you up once, but nobody can keep picking you up all the time. Because nobody can, nobody can sort of heal your mind, you have to heal it yourself.”

You know and that, and I said I’m a philosophical person and I read the poetry and you know about suffering of Buddha and all that sort of thing, and I am spiritual as well I think, so that’s helped me sort of cope.

You know I mean I do yoga and that sort of thing; you know and because I still think I’m not, I’m anxiety free I do get it but I do breathing exercise or walks, I go in the fresh air and you know, I sort of read you know nice things, or obviously what’s happening in the world, you know, sort of keep in touch with that. That sometimes does bother me, what’s happening to people, and all the suffering that goes on sometimes, you know, I worry about that kind of thing.

But then you know you’ve got to sort of keep your mind alright, so yeah. So, I’m yeah, I’m in a good frame of mind that I need to have something done about my knee.